


Eternally yours with a thousand and one caveats

by mayoho



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Breakup Letter, Correspondence, F/M, Unnecessarily long compound sentences, star crossed lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 02:06:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17572244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayoho/pseuds/mayoho
Summary: Head canon for the last page of Beatrice's infamous 200 page break up letter.I re-read the Beatrice Letters and Lemony Snicket: An Unauthorized Autobiography and it made me sad (I had it in the back of my head while I was watching the Netflix adaptation, but I didn't really need the reminder that the book version of Beatrice and Lemony's relationship is so much more tragic and messy). This is not fix it fic.





	Eternally yours with a thousand and one caveats

In conclusion, I am sorry. I am sorry, primarily, that I cannot marry you--now or ever--but I also find that I am sorry about a great deal of other things. I am sorry I lack the capacity for brevity or compassion when I am feeling this way. I am sorry, and suspect I always shall be, that we are not slightly different people who had not been forced to make the terrible and difficult decisions we had been forced to make at such a young age and, therefore, could have lived a long and happy life together. I am sorry I’ve typed that, though not sorry enough to white it out, as I fear this sentiment will cause you more grief than comfort but I am still too upset to spare your feelings. 

I am sorry that I understand when you made promises to me that you could not keep, it was not out of malice but an understandable and sympathetic lapse of judgement as you wanted to want those things even irrespective of me wanting them and it being a necessity for us to continue our relationship for you to want them as well, so as one of your closest friends I forgive you completely but as your fiancée, I never shall forgive you. I am sorry that part of me is glad this happened now rather than later, when I suspect it would hurt even more. 

I am sorry that I will always love you but that will not be enough to stop me from trying to starting a family with someone else. I am sorry that situations are such that I cannot tell you this in person so I will not be able to give you a hug and a cup of tea after I’ve made you cry, but I am not sorry that I have made you cry because you made me cry, and you know I can be quite petty. (Lemony, please take care of yourself; go make a cup of tea as I am not able to do so myself.) 

I am sorry this letter will undoubtedly not find you safe and well, but alone, far from home, and anxious about what the future will hold--not just on your own behalf but on behalf of your friends, family, associates, and even your enemies. I am sorry that the organization of which we are both a part is the way that it is, that the state of this organization has made it increasingly impossible to know who is doing what and to what ends they are doing them. I am sorry that we are volunteers, and as we work in such a capacity, we can expect no recompense for our suffering, but I am not sorry enough about this to join our former associates who feel they are entitled to recompense because, though we may sometimes disagree as to what constitutes the greater good, I believe we shall both always remain dedicated to this noble cause. I am sorry the world is not a quiet as I would like it to be, and I am sorry that it seems inevitable that things will become worse before they get better. I am sorry the world is the way that it is and that the way the world is will keep us apart. 

Eternally yours (even as I hope to also be someone else’s and remain entirely my own),

B. B.

**Author's Note:**

> I did have quite a bit of fun making these sentences so long. While it's very much a Snicket thing, I think there's a case to be made that all of Lemony's generation of VFD write similarly, so it felt right to have Beatrice write that way. 
> 
> I guess this is, kind of, fix it fic, because it is really deeply important to me that Beatrice loved Lemony back. It also makes me happier and sadder that I genuinely think they would have stayed close friends post breakup if it wasn't so dangerous for them to communicate.


End file.
